The Tree of Life (Lost Civilizations: 3) (14 page)

Joash made his arms pump, to swing as he clenched his hands into fists and forced himself to run uphill. His thighs burned. Air whistled down his dry throat. In moments, his lungs ached. It felt as if he crawled uphill.

Fierce roars sounded from the other summit, his summit, although the authors of those roars were still out of sight. He looked up in alarm, caught his foot on a rock and staggered. He kept his balance. What had made those roars? His mind was blank with fear and fatigue. Yes, sabertooths. They’d been away from camp, hunting for their midday meal. Now, Tarag called them. Of all the luck—a laugh burned out his throat. He remembered what he carried. The big cats hadn’t been able to endure the Valley of Dry Bones. He had nothing to fear from them as long as he had the fiery stone. Panting, with sweat dripping from his chin, Joash climbed the hill. The roars increased.

Joash slowed from exhaustion. His breathing was harsh in his ears. His thighs were jelly. The forest of pines was still a hill or two away. He looked back. The swiftly running Gibborim leaped across the smooth stones of the dry riverbed. He could hear their cloaks flap, and he saw their long, gleaming rapiers. They would cower before the fiery stone, he knew. But then, fear hit him. They could cast spells. How close would they have to be before he was in range of their evil magic? He didn’t think he’d be able to nullify
all
their spells. Just one getting through his Seraph power would be enough to end everything. After today, there were no more second chances.

Joash groaned and forced himself uphill, even though his lungs burned as if with fire, even though the roars of sabertooths told him they ran up the other side. Behind the Gibborim marched giants. Behind the giants, strode Tarag in his gleaming armor, beginning to recover from his fiery stone ordeal.

The first sabertooth topped the hill. It was like doom to Joash. The massive gray beast, with over-muscled shoulders, roared down, saliva dripping from his huge fangs. The sabertooth’s yellow eyes blazed with rage, his titanic bulk promised death for whoever faced his might. Old Three Paws from Jotunheim could never have faced that brute. A giant might fear to match it.

As Joash stared at the great cat in mortal dread, seeing his body stretched on a board as the Gibborim teased his soul from his tortured frame, Joash recalled a wonderful fact. He had been able to look into an eagle’s thoughts. That had been when he’d first handled the fiery stone. Later, he’d actually told a squirrel to flee. Had bearing the stone somehow given him the power to communicate with animals? It seemed so, unless he was going mad, and this was all illusion.

Joash pushed uphill toward the monstrous cat, and concentrated on peering into its thoughts. He didn’t sense the heart pump or the lungs fill with air. Instead, he saw the great vitality, the courage and the bloodlust of the sabertooth. And he saw, too, a great dread and fear of Tarag. The sabertooth
must
obey his god. The fierce dictator
demanded
allegiance no matter the cost. The command lay heavy on the sabertooth. Joash realized the great cat was Tarag’s slave.

It wasn’t words Joash heard, but a sort of sight, a feeling, and an understanding with the great beast. He shared thoughts, concepts and knowledge. His power had grown since his insight with the squirrel.

Joash wondered if Father Adam been able to do this in the Garden of Eden? Elohim had told Adam to name the animals. They had come to him. Surely, Adam had been able to communicate with them. Had handling the fiery stone returned some of Adam’s lost powers to one of his distant, many times removed grandsons?

More sabertooths joined the first. They snarled at Joash, a wall of furry savagery.

Giddy at his new power, Joash told them, “You may not attack me.” It was as if he hurled cold water on them. The sabertooths gazed in hurt puzzlement. Then, one by one, they bowed their massive heads as they would to a king.

Panting and light-headed, with sweat dripping from his hands, Joash stroked their soft fur, and murmured, “You are no longer bound to Tarag. You are free to return to the wilds.”

They roared savagely, the sounds shaking Joash’s bones and his ears aching. For as long as they could remember, they had been bound to Tarag. For as long as they could endure, they had followed his bizarre commands. Now, the Gibborim raced uphill. Tarag had ordered them to leave the vile creatures unharmed.

“You may kill the Gibborim,” Joash said.

The sabertooths snarled with bestial joy, their fur bristling. They peered at the approaching Gibborim. Then the sabertooths rushed downhill.

Joash raced drunkenly over the summit and down the other side. Sounds of battle drifted to him, but moving consumed him.

In time, he reached the edge of the pine forest and rested his forearm against a rough-barked trunk. He panted, and sweat soaked his clothes. His legs trembled with exhaustion.

He heard a shout. With a groan, Joash pushed off the pine and looked back. From a distance, one-eyed Ymir pointed at him with a bloody spear.

Then a dog barked. Joash frowned. It couldn’t be a wolf, because wolves could only howl, growl or whine. He looked around.

“Harn?” he whispered.

The lion-colored dog barked again and bounded toward him. Joash wept, bent to one knee and hugged the wedge-shaped head. Harn licked his face.

“Manling!” a giant boomed, his armor jangling.

Joash might have despaired, but he looked at his beloved dog with his new sight. Harn wanted him to follow.

“Take me there, Harn.”

The big dog ran into the pine forest.

“Wait.” Joash wrapped his hand around Harn’s collar, and whispered, “Help me run.”

The big dog pulled Joash, and soon led him to a wolf-run. Behind them, the giants roared curses, as they crashed through the forest. It wasn’t long before Joash and Harn broke through the trees and ran into a long depression. Boulders spread for miles. Beyond the boulders, rose a mountain.

Harn kept pulling Joash, until Joash spied orns.

“Stop,” he whispered.

Several eight-foot orns clawed at boulders, no, at two boulders leaning together and forming a cave.

They had bright feathers, leathery skin and heavy, three-toed talons. They resembled the ostriches of the Far South, but orns had horse-sized heads and savage curved beaks, like pick-axes. Orns ran from nothing, not from wolves, lions or sabertooths. Orns rent limbs from torsos, and tore bloody ribbons of flesh, as they gobbled more greedily than a hyena.

The flightless birds screeched in rage, as they beat their useless black wings and used their claws to scrape the rocks.

As Harn inched toward the huge birds, a sword stabbed out the boulder opening. Herrek and Sungara—

“No!” Joash shouted.

The three orns turned. One opened its beak and screeched. The second tried, but its screech died, as the rage fled. They, too, like the sabertooths, recognized Joash for what he’d become.

“Come to me,” Joash shouted, using his new power.

The orns obeyed, just as the sabertooths had obeyed.

“Herrek, Sungara!” Joash shouted. “Hurry out.”

When the largest orn reached him, casting Joash into shadow, he told the bird to attack the giants as they exited the forest. The crested bird raced for the pine trees, reaching them as the first giant emerged into sight. The orn charged. The giant, old Ymir One-Eye, gaped in surprise and barely lifted his spear in time to defend himself. More giants appeared, and the orns leaped to the attack.

Seeing this, the wily Huri took them deeper into the masses of boulders and gained a good head start.

Ymir thrust his spear into an orn’s breast and drove a giant bird to the ground. With his iron-plated shoe, he crushed the head. Another giant swung his axe, slicing a neck in two. They slaughtered the creatures.

But despite their tracking skills, the giants met their match this afternoon, as Sungara confused the enemy and eventually slipped away through a narrow corridor into a valley beyond.

“They’ll send slith after us,” Herrek whispered a few hours later.

Joash grinned, although his sweaty hair was lank. The others had taken turns helping him travel. Even so, he was past his limit.

“Do you find slith amusing?” Herrek asked.

“Keep a lookout for eagles,” Joash said. “I’ll show you a surprise for the pterodactyls.”

Herrek glanced at Sungara. There had been few words between them. The race had been too tiring and grim.

“Believe me,” Joash said, “you won’t be disappointed.”

Chapter Fourteen

Sungara

The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

-- 1 Kings 17:6

Lord Uriah and Adah waited. The old Arkite guide, Beron, squatted beside an even older, wounded Arkite. The ancient sat beside a gutted hut, the charred remains of a village. The Elonites had helped the ancient bury many corpses and cover them with stones. Now, at mid-afternoon, the old one completed his tale and then listened to Beron.

Beron spoke rapidly in the Arkite tongue. The ancient listened, mumbling answers from time to time. At last, the ancient stirred. With a gesture, he indicated an area to the south.

Adah watched Beron. She’d come to admire him. He had courage, and he had a fierce desire to hurt the Nephilim who were hurting the people of Arkite Land. For as Lord Uriah’s small army marched toward the Forbidden Territory, it had come upon many gutted villages. Fiends had done that. The Nephilim led a band of savage Nebo warriors. From survivors, the small army had learned the name of the chief fiend: Rog. He wore a golden medallion, and bore a shield with Gog’s red trident symbol blazoned upon it. Rog had been to Eden. It seemed certain that he meant to go again.

The journey through Snow Leopard Country had added stragglers who thirsted for revenge.

Beron patted the ancient on the shoulder, and joined Lord Uriah and Adah.

“Rog has been here,” Beron said. “He’s probably a day ahead of us.”

“Did the old one say anything about giants?” Lord Uriah asked.

Beron nodded grimly.

“What about a dark-haired stranger?” Adah asked.

Beron nodded.

Adah’s heart thudded.

Lord Uriah laid a gentle hand on her arm. “Don’t build up your hopes. It can’t be Joash.”

“What did the old one say?” Adah asked Beron.

“He tells a strange story,” Beron said. “He heard it from a passing woman, one who fled with her child. The woman claimed to have seen giants torturing Snow Leopard Warriors. The giants demanded information about a young man, with a strange face that glows. They also asked about a lion-colored dog, a chain-armored warrior and a squat savage with eagle feathers in his hair.”

Adah turned to Lord Uriah.

He moodily shook his head.

“Go on,” Adah told Beron.

“There isn’t much more to say. The woman did see one other strange sight, however. She saw a flock of eagles swoop upon a slith and destroy it.”

“What does this mean?” Adah asked Lord Uriah.

He shook his head again. Then he asked Beron, “How far are the giants from here?”

“The old one thinks they’re a day’s march behind.”

“So, we’re ahead of Tarag,” Lord Uriah said.

“Do we stand and fight?” Adah asked.

Beron cleared his throat.

“Yes?” Lord Uriah asked.

“Patriarch,” Beron began, “the old one told me that the fiend and his band took the further route to the Forbidden Territory. There is a shorter route, one that leads through an eon-old tunnel.”

“Can he show us this route?” Lord Uriah asked.

“He would, but his legs are not up to the trek.”

“We have chariots!” Lord Uriah said. “He can ride with me.”

“And so I told him,” Beron said. “He agreed.”

Lord Uriah clapped Beron on the back.

Adah was troubled. “What if Tarag and the giants link with Rog and his Nebo raiders? Won’t they overwhelm us?”

“Let’s tackle one problem at a time,” Lord Uriah said. “First, let us get ahead of the fiends and their Nebo warriors. Then we can find the perfect location to ambush them.”

“What about this man, whose face shines, the chain-armored warrior and the obvious Huri?” Adah asked.

“If they are who we think they are,” Lord Uriah said, “then we’ll find out very soon indeed.”

“Shouldn’t we send out chariots to find them?”

“One chariot,” Lord Uriah said. “We’ll need the others.” He drew his brows in thought. “Gens will go.”

“I’ll go with him,” Adah said.

“Just Gens. If any more go, there won’t be enough room in the chariot for all of them.”

Adah saw his logic. At last, she agreed. Soon, Lord Uriah’s small army rose up, and traveled toward this secret tunnel to the Forbidden Territory.

***

Toward evening, while Herrek, Sungara and Harn waited about a half-mile away, Joash took out the fiery stone. The light was blinding. Because of the fiery stone Joash could feel animals’ pain, feel their thoughts, their emotions, their joys, their hungers and their disappointments. It wasn’t like communicating with people. It was on a more primitive, fundamental level.

Joash secreted the fiery stone in its leather pouch, adjusted a veil over his face and a hood over his forehead. Herrek and Sungara seemed frightened of him now. They’d said his face was radiant, difficult to look at. He had learned the radiance dissipated if he didn’t peer daily at the stone. As the radiance waned, so did his ability to talk with animals.

The most important animals had proved to be the eagles. As they’d neared the Forbidden Territory, Joash had learned an incredible thing. The eagles, and other animals, became smarter. They didn’t become as smart as people but they understood, in their primitive way, the meaning of the coming attempt to storm Eden. Also, the eagles hated the slith. Joash had learned that the first time he communicated with one. As they neared Eden, the eagles gathered to hunt Yorgash’s pets. It wasn’t that Joash commanded the eagles to do this. He wasn’t sure they’d listen to him if he did. He’d simply explained what occurred, and the eagles, especially as they grew smarter, had devised a plan.

Joash supposed it was a very avian plan. Many times in the past, he’d seen crows chase a lone hawk or an owl. And he’d seen smaller birds chase crows. The eagles simply took it one step further, using their talons to close with the leathery slith. Just as importantly, the eagles which lived near Eden, came at times to report what occurred. So Joash couldn’t afford to lose his precious ability, for the eagles helped them keep ahead of the giants.

Joash hurried down the mountainside. In the growing dusk, Sungara hurried through the waist-high grasses toward him.

There was a reason why it was the Huri, and not Herrek, coming toward him. Sungara was a Seraph, able to peer at the fiery stone without immediately falling on his face. Herrek had cried out upon seeing the stone, and had fallen down as if struck by a mace. Only later, once the fiery stone was gone, had Herrek revived. Even in Joash’s presence, with the stone hidden in the mammoth-skin sack, Herrek had a difficult time.

Sungara hailed him.

Joash strode faster.

“We must hurry,” Sungara said, as he closed the final few feet. “I felt the presence of giants again.”

The Huri was the best tracker Joash had ever known. Sungara seemed to have a sixth sense about trailing and about fleeing others.

Soon, they reached Herrek and Harn under a sheltering outcropping of stone. Herrek’s face was lean and tanned, his red hair tangled like a primitive’s hair. For the last few days, he’d been polishing his armor with sandstone, and had brought the mail’s sheen back. His sword was razor-sharp. The relationship between Herrek and Joash had changed. No longer were they charioteer and groom. In fact, both Sungara and Herrek showed him deference. The fiery stone gave him an aura of command along with its other gifts.

After they refilled their water-skins from the mountainside pool, Sungara took the lead. He took a path that twisted back and forth up yet another mountain. When they were halfway, Herrek called a halt. The stars shone, and a cold wind whistled. Joash shut his jacket, as he squatted on his heels. His side had a permanent ache, and his feet always hurt.

“Look below,” Herrek said.

At the base of a tall mountain bobbed tiny motes of light. It made Joash’s gut clench. Then he remembered that the air was clearer in the mountains. He wondered how far away the lights were. The way they moved minutely, and the long, snaking line.…

“How far is Eden?” Sungara asked.

Joash used Irad the Arkite’s memories, incomplete as they were. “Six, maybe seven days march,” Joash said.

Sungara sighed.

“Trouble?” Herrek asked.

“This is bad,” Sungara said. He studied the bobbing torches. “The giants will catch up in a day, maybe less.”

“Then we march faster,” said Herrek.

Sungara gave a bleak laugh.

Joash groaned as he stood. “The race is not yet over.”

***

An eagle screamed in the morning.

The three men staggered over rock-strewn terrain. Sungara led, Herrek brought up the rear. The eagle screeched again. It stood on a boulder above them, and peered at them, as if it couldn’t quite understand why three humans pushed themselves so hard.

With the ache in his side, like a permanent knife in his ribs, Joash wiped sweat from his eyes and tried to concentrate. The eagle cocked its head. Joash’s head hurt all the time. He wondered vaguely if that was because the air was thinner up here. Then it came to him that the eagle had important news. He held up his right arm. The eagle, a majestic bird, alighted onto his arm. The two looked into each other’s eyes, and the information was imparted.

Suddenly, from high overhead, a slith cried in rage against airborne enemies.

Joash studied the giant pterodactyl and the eagles attacking it. They swooped at the slith from all sides. The slith seemed to stagger in the air, as an eagle flashed past. Joash could almost see the talons rake the leathery flesh. He could almost feel the slith’s pain and frustration. “It’s the last one,” he croaked. His arm shook, as the eagle that had just
spoken
with him cried out and leaped, brushing Joash’s cheek with a wing.

The vastly larger slith wheeled on one of his many attackers. Another eagle, his talons ready, flashed past and struck at the slith’s head. As their eagle struggled to join the fray, Joash wondered what Yorgash had done to the make the slith immune to his fiery stone power.

The slith dodged the latest swooping eagle, and then he dove for safety, as he tried to escape north. The eagles followed. Soon, they were mere dots, and then they were out of sight.

“What did your eagle say?” Sungara asked.

Joash shook himself out of his daze. “A chariot is near.”

“A chariot?” Herrek asked, hope ringing in his voice.

“Unfortunately, to reach the chariot we have to climb over that.” Joash pointed at a steep mountain to their right.

Sungara studied the mountain. “Not good. The giants are near. If we try to cross there, some of the faster giants may catch us.”

“We must attempt it,” Herrek said. “We may be caught soon in any regard. With a chariot, we’ll be able to stay ahead of them all the way to Eden.”

Sungara nodded, although he seemed despondent.

“What’s wrong?” Joash asked.

“I have an ill feeling,” Sungara admitted. He strung his heavy black bow. “This is a death march,” the Huri said. Then he would say no more, as he led them up the steep rise of rock.

***

Lersi, the only Gibborim in Tarag’s band since the sabertooths had slain the rest, listened to the dying slith give its last report. It had spoken with Rog. Soon, the huge beast gave a convulsive shudder and breathed no more. She toed the two eagles that she’d brought down with necromantic fire. They were both charred masses of blackened feathers. High above, too high now for her to reach with her black magic, soared another eagle. It was a scout for the horrible Seraph.

She hurried to Tarag, who sat by a small pool and devoured a bloody haunch of goat. The cunning Mimir was already there, as were Hrungir and Motsognir Stone Hands. The First Born didn’t allow these three particular giants out of his sight. They were his Chosen, his special paladins, who would stand with him when he fought the guardian Cherub. The Gorts, the giants’ white-haired servitors, waited in a ragged clump near Mimir. They bore heavy burdens of food and water and were near their limit of endurance. A third of them had already died.

Lersi, who had carefully drawn her cowl to shield her from the hated sun, bowed low before Tarag.

“What does Gog’s emissary say?” Tarag growled.

“He marches back to us, O High One,” Lersi said. “Rog agrees that we should catch the Seraph who bears the fiery stone.”

“What of the human army?” Tarag asked.

“The slith didn’t see any sign of them, High One. Surely, they have turned aside or become lost in these forsaken mountains.”

Tarag shook his furry head.

Lersi savored her last morsel of information. She wondered if she should bargain with it. She decided that bargaining was foolish. Tarag and the giants would try to cheat her of the grand prize, she was certain of this. She, therefore, would simply have to be more cunning, and at the proper time.

“O High One, the slith spotted the Seraph. He is near.”

Tarag snarled with rage. “You should have told me that immediately.”